


Favourite Customer

by midoriverte



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: M/M, What else is new, haise is a lovestruck idiot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-29
Updated: 2016-04-29
Packaged: 2018-06-05 05:16:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6691162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midoriverte/pseuds/midoriverte
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The man with the bright blond hair and the adorable smile comes into Haise's small coffee shop everyday (not that Haise waits for him or anything).  He wishes he could at least know the man's name, and maybe have one single interaction with him that doesn't make him want to die of embarrassment.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Favourite Customer

He comes in everyday, not that Haise looks forward to it or anything.  


It was ridiculous, really, because he was just another customer. He didn’t even talk to him all that much, at least not much more than any other customer, but when Haise heard the door open as he was wiping down tables and saw the shock of bright blond hair he felt his heart leap and couldn’t stop himself from shouting “Welcome!” in such an overly-cheerful voice that it made him cringe.  


He was greeted by the man’s blinding smile (which Haise was sure was just how he always smiled at people, but that somehow made it all the more endearing). Haise was so preoccupied by his smile that he almost missed that he was about to order.  


“Can I have -”  


“The usual?” Haise interjected quickly. “Coming right up!”  


The man looked adorably taken aback that Haise knew what he wanted. “Do I really come here often enough to have a ‘usual’?”  


Rather than pointing out that he had come every day for the last three weeks, Haise said “I just have a really good memory.” _Yes good. Play it cool. Don’t act like you’ve been paying special attention to him_. Haise mentally congratulated himself.  


If he had hoped that this little exchange would lead to a lengthy conversation (he had), he was sorely disappointed. The customer sat at his usual spot in the corner by the window, laptop open. Haise wondered what he could read into his favourite spot. Maybe that he liked to be out of the action but still be able to watch it?  


He was so preoccupied with this thought that he spilled the man’s latte all over the counter and had to start over.  


He brought the man his latte, his face slightly pink from embarrassment after that little fiasco. He said “thank you” cheerfully to Haise but did not start a conversation, though Haise wasn’t sure why he was expecting or hoping for one. In any case he didn’t have a chance to start one himself, because another customer had just walked through the door, and he supposed he should probably take their order before he had hovered long enough by the man’s table long enough for it to be weird.  


When the man left, quite a while later ( _He must really like being here_ , Haise thought proudly ), Haise said “Thank you for coming!” and got a little wave in response.  


As the door swung shut behind his customer, Haise couldn’t help but wonder why it was that he wanted to talk to him so badly. He had plenty of regular customers, and found it easy to strike up conversations with them, but for some reason this person felt… different. He just wanted some sort of connection with him and he didn’t even know why.  


He wished he could at least know his name.  
***  


The next day, Haise got his opportunity.  


His favourite customer (because Haise had to admit that this man was his favourite), came in as usual, but Haise noticed that the man seemed a little down.  


“The usual?” Haise asked, having perhaps moved towards the man’s table a little too quickly.  


“Yes, please,” the man gave a weak smile that was still bright, but Haise had memorized the way this man looked when he smiled and he knew it was just a little off. Maybe he was tired, or had a bad day. Either way, Haise was determined to cheer him up just a little.  


Haise hastily made the man his usual, setting it down on the table as he stared despondently at his laptop. Haise sneaked a glance at the screen and managed to see what was clearly a very unfinished essay.  


_Ah_ , Haise thought, _finals season_.  


Haise watched him diligently as he typed at his laptop, or more precisely stared at it hopelessly while occasionally hitting keys. The man finished his latte and Haise bustled over, ready with another one.  


“Oh,” the man said, clearly surprised and pleased, “Thank you.”  


Victory. Haise told the man it was no problem and returned to his faithful watch. He was thankful that business was rather slow today, it gave him more time to focus on one customer in particular.  


He waited a while after the man finished his second latte, before bringing him a third and setting down a chocolate croissant as well.  


“Oh,” the man said again, “I didn’t order …”  


“On the house,” Haise said quickly and rather breathlessly.  


“You don’t have to do that-”  


“I insist,” Haise cut him off. Then, filled with a boldness that surprised even him he added. “You seemed a little stressed out, so I wanted to do something to cheer you up.” Haise prayed that the man found this endearing and not creepy.  


The man raised his eyebrows in surprise, and looked a little embarrassed.  


“Do I really seem that depressed?” he asked sheepishly.  


“W-well,” Haise wasn’t sure how to answer that.  


“I have been pretty stressed out,” the man continued (Haise was grateful for the save). “It’s exam season you know?”  


Haise resisted saying “I know I’ve been watching you writing your essay” and instead said “Well that explains it,” with what he hoped was an airy laugh.  


“I really do appreciate this, though,” he said, gesturing at the latte and the croissant.  


“Don’t worry about it!” Haise wanted to keep talking to him, but just then a small group of people came through the front door and it was technically Haise’s job to take their orders.  


Though he was tempted to tell them to leave and flip the sign on the door to “closed”.  


“Um,” Haise said awkwardly. “I should probably get going…”  


“Yeah.”  


Haise turned to go regretfully, but then the man grabbed his sleeve and Haise whipped around.  


“Hideyoshi Nagachika.”  


“W-what?”  


“That’s my name,” the man, _Hideyoshi_ , said with a grin. “You can call me ‘Hide’ though.”  


“O-okay,” Haise could hardly dare believe his ears. “Um, I’m Haise Sasaki.”  


“I know,” Hide grinned. “It’s on your name tag.”  


“O-oh, right,” Haise hated feeling his face go red. “I should probably…uh…” he trailed off awkwardly as he gestured vaguely towards the counter, and he did a weird sort of sprint over to the counter before his customers got too impatient.  


He swore he could hear Hide laugh.  


It was the cutest laugh he’d ever heard.  


The café got busy after that, and Haise was unable to go over to Hide again no matter how desperately he wanted to. Hide wasn’t there for a long time after, he waved at Haise enthusiastically as he left and Haise waved back.  


Haise felt like he was floating throughout the rest of the day, and spent the rest of the day greeting customers in an unusually chipper voice and putting hearts in the foam of all his lattes.  


In one of the off-times the next day, Haise was absently doodling Hide’s name on a napkin, surrounding the characters with little hearts.  


He heard the bell above the door tinkle and looked shouted “Welcome!” before even looking up.  


“Hey,” Haise almost had a heart attack when he realised it was Hide.  


Hastily stuffing the napkin in his back pocket before Hide could see, Haise quickly said “The usual?”  


“Yep!” Hide said. “Kinda quiet in here today isn’t it?”  


“It’ll pick up,” Haise said, while secretly hoping it wouldn’t so he could have Hide all to himself.  


Haise quickly made Hide’s latte, decorating it with a heart absentmindedly, which he did not realize until he’d set it in front of Hide and Hide raised his eyebrows questioningly. He didn’t normally put hearts in anyone’s lattes, he usually went for smiley faces.  


“I, uh,” Haise was going to burst into flames from embarrassment.  


“Cute,” Haise could have sworn he heard Hide mumble that, but he shook the thought from his head. There was no way.  


Haise was suddenly hit with the frightening reality that he was in the café alone with Hide. He didn’t have anything to do or anyone else to serve. He could talk to Hide the entire time and nothing could stop him.  


Except he didn’t have anything to say. And he had been standing at Hide’s table for a weird amount of time without saying anything.  


Saving what little shreds of dignity he had left (so about three shreds of dignity), Haise said, “I, uh, have something to do in the back,” _lies_ , “Let me know if you need anything else!”  


Haise turned away, certain he could at least go to the back before he started freaking out about _Hide_ , but then he heard Hide say:  


“Hey, you dropped something!”  


Haise couldn’t figure out what that might be, he turned around to see Hide reaching down to pick up something…  


A napkin.  


Haise frantically patted his back pocket. He must have not put it in his pocket properly and it had fallen out.  


“N-no don’t look at that!” Haise shouted pathetically. But it was too late, Hide had noticed there was writing on the napkin and he had turned it around and seen his name with hearts all around it and there was no way he could convince Hide that it was written by anyone else because no else was here.  


This was it. Haise was going to die. He could never face Hide again. He was going to move far, far away and change his name and dye his hair.  


In a look that was getting all too familiar for Haise, Hide looked up from the napkin and raised his eyebrows in a question.  


It was causing him physical pain to not just bury his face in his hands.  


“I- I can explain,” Haise stammered. He couldn’t explain.  


“So do you want my number to go along with my name?”  


“Oh my god I’m so sorry- what?” Haise stopped short in what was going to be a pathetic and grovelling apology.  


“My number?” he asked again, holding up the napkin.  


When Haise remained in stunned silence, Hide smiled.  


“I need a pen,” Hide prodded.  


“O-oh!” Haise felt his brain stutter back to life. “Right! A pen!” Haise nervously patted his pockets again and finally pulled one out of his apron pocket, handing it to Hide with slightly trembling hands.  


Hide wrote his number down on the napkin and gave it back to Haise with a flourish. Haise took it, completely unable to believe the luck he was having.  


“Call me some time,” Hide said. He looked a little bit sheepish as he added, “To be honest, I’ve wanted to ask you out for a while.”  


“Really?” Haise asked, dumbfounded.  


“Yep, why do you think I keep coming here?”  


“C-coffee?”  


“Well,” Hide smirked mischievously. “The coffee is pretty damn good, but the cute waiter doesn’t hurt anything.”  


There was no way Hide didn’t know the affect he was having on Haise. He felt like his face was on fire and Hide kept grinning at him with the cutest smile that made Haise’s heart pound so loudly that he could barely hear what Hide was saying.  


“I meant to ask you out earlier, but exam season started kicking my ass and I wanted to go out with you when I actually felt alive.”  


“I think you’re really cute too!” Haise burst out, before realizing that the conversation had shifted from the point when that would be an appropriate response in this conversation.  


“I- I mean,” Haise backtracked. “I’ve wanted to ask you out too, but I was too embarrassed and I thought it might be weird…”  


“It’s not,” Hide said. “Since there’s no one here, do you want to sit down and chat for a while?” he asked, gesturing at the chair across from him.  


“Are you asking me for a date in my own café?” Haise asked incredulously.  


“I believe I am, yes,” Hide smiled again. Damn him.  


“Well,” Haise said. “S-sure,” he mumbled somewhat anticlimactically, moving to sit down.  


“Wait!” Hide said quickly. Before Haise could sit down, Hide jumped up and pulled out Haise’s chair for him.  


Haise rolled his eyes, “You’re a giant dork, aren’t you?” he asked as he sat down.  


“I guess you’ll just have to find out,” Hide retorted.  


“I think I already have,” Haise mumbled.  


They managed to talk for a while before more customers came and Haise had to leave to take their orders. It was over too soon for him. Once they had actually started talking to each other Haise found that Hide was not only as adorable as Haise had always thought (and he was absolutely a giant dork), but he was very easy and fun to talk to once Haise got over his nervousness.  


He waved goodbye to Hide when he left. The napkin with his name on it was securely in Haise’s pocket this time, and he was already looking forward to giving his favourite customer a call.


End file.
